The capstone event of the 2011-2012 year of Past Tense seminars will be participatory writing workshop. Curator Stephen Tabor will bring a set of recently-acquired objects to serve as a catalyst for our writing exercise. Kariann Yokota (author of Unbecoming British and The Dana and David Dornsife Fellow, Huntington Library and Senior Scholar, Ivy Scholars Program, Yale University) will lead a discussion about ways to interpret and write about material objects.

Please RSVP to reserve a box lunch and to receive the pre-circulated writings for this workshop.

We’re excited to announce that Tom Mullaney joined our lineup of Past Tense seminar speakers to discuss his research on Chinese typewriters. If you plan to attend, please RSVP so we can reserve a box lunch for you.

All Past Tense seminars are held at noon at the Huntington Library. For more information contact janaremyATgmail.com.

Martha Bradstreet and the “Epithet of ‘Woman’”: A Story of Land, Libel, Litigation, and Justifying “Unwomanly” Behavior in the Early Republic

A Writing History Workshop with Michael Blaakman

Thursday, January 26
12:30pm
HGS 302

In 1824, Martha Bradstreet, a woman of distinguished pedigree but limited means, filed thirty-five suits in federal court to reclaim a lost inheritance: a vast tract of land in and around Utica, New York. This microhistory reconstructs Bradstreet’s struggle, including her dramatic divorce, her embroilment in malice suits, her campaign to prove title against a phalanx of alleged squatters, and her crusade to impeach a federal judge. Along the way, the paper analyzes the strategic ways that Bradstreet justified her “unwomanly” actions, in an effort to better understand how women resolved the dissonances between lived reality and prescriptive gender ideology in nineteenth-century America.

Come join us for a discussion of Michael’s paper, and of the issues related to characterization, the balance of narrative and argument, and the uses and shortcomings of microhistory. We hope to see you Thursday!